We thought we couldn't top our Father's Day Buffet last night. We thought it could not be done. We spent two hours in heaven last night, at an all-you-can-eat buffet at the top of a mall in Ho Chi Minh City. The stations were: create your own pasta, pizza, tempura, sushi, shelled fishes (four types of snails or mussels), hot-pot (raw items to be cooked at a boiling pot of water at your table- including meats, fishes and vegetables), seafood (stir fry shrimp, seafood gratin, fish in cream sauce), soup (chicken beef or veggie), spring rolls, hot foods (all meats imaginable, rice, noodles, veggies), salad bar, dessert bar, ice cream truck, crepes.
I left FULL. We had tried to make it a competition, but it wasn't really a fair one because Monica can NOT keep up with the power-stomachs that Eli and I trained for buffets. Buffets are all about strategy, no novice could compete with old time buffet pros. It's all about snacking while you walk from station to station, starting out small, working your way up, not wasting stomach space on something you don't love. Puhleeeeeeese, don't mess with me.
Anyway, we thought it was the best meal possible. For food and for experience, there was no other way we would have been able to sample Vietnamese food so freely. But then.. today happened.
Walking around Ho Chi Minh City looking for a place to eat pho, we stumbled across a low hanging awning covering 60 or so loud, beer drinking men. We just stopped and watched them for a while until Eli suggested we join them.
He was SO right. Being the only westerners, and one of very few women, the three of us got STARED DOWN as we walked to an empty table in the back. But these weren't stares of anger; veryone in the place wanted us to be there so badly. Within about thirty seconds of being seated, three beer glasses were put in front of us and the table of men next to us raised their glasses to us. This would become a theme throughout our lunch- we were toasted about every 3 minutes from all surrounding tables. So many times in fact, that I often had to interrupt a bite to take a swig of beer. I wonder how many half chewed pieces of mushroom I swallowed trying to keep up... I also think my thumb is sore from all the thumbs-up I had to reciprocate.
We didn't know what to order so I took a stroll around other tables to see if there was anything in common. As I walked by tables, everyone wanted me to have what they were having. Coaxed into one table, I was hand fed a piece of beef and some french fries from a man's chopsticks. And when I liked it, they couldn't have been happier. Afterwards, they watched me order and I felt a lot of pressure to order their beef, but I didn't. It was good though, I promise!
They loved us.
We finally decided: the stupid vegetarians ordering fried rice and tofu, while I got mushroom prawns. Then, as the menu was being taken from me, I noticed an eggplant dish and quickly added that to my list too, becuase, come on, it's eggplant.
The shrimp was so good. The huge black mushrooms were fresh and covered in garlic, and the shrimp blended so well into the whole dish. I've eaten shrimp once or twice a day since entering Vietnam, but these were the best yet.
My eggplant though... ahh, clear winner. Freshly grilled, the egglpant was cut in cubes as opposed to the thin American slices I'm used to. This changed everything- making the dish about the EGGPLANT and not about the sauce. I tried it first plain, but it tasted just like grilled eggplant. Way better with the sweet sauce they gave me on the side. Not that I wouldn't have eaten it plain, obviously I would have loved it. It's just better with sauce.
Eli and I love eggplant. LOVE. Compete in loving it, even. So when Eli first tried the eggplant without the sauce and didn't love it, I accused him of not being a true eggplant lover. A true eggplant lover would love their eggplant, even if it's naked. He was MAD. All day he's been trying to tell me all the reasons he loves eggplant, how he loves eggplant prepared, how often he eats it. Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. I'm just saying that I ate most of the dish and I like it plain too.
Finally- it's important to mention the beer. Saigon beer, named for the city herself. It was spicy! And also.. salty? It made my tongue tingle. But both Eli and Monica agreed, it was salty. I really liked it though.
The whole lunch was a trip. Being cheered for eating, being applauded for just being there. And the whole place didn't even have a name, I don't think. It was just a hole in the wall for the locals. But we found it, and therefore, we won.
I left FULL. We had tried to make it a competition, but it wasn't really a fair one because Monica can NOT keep up with the power-stomachs that Eli and I trained for buffets. Buffets are all about strategy, no novice could compete with old time buffet pros. It's all about snacking while you walk from station to station, starting out small, working your way up, not wasting stomach space on something you don't love. Puhleeeeeeese, don't mess with me.
Anyway, we thought it was the best meal possible. For food and for experience, there was no other way we would have been able to sample Vietnamese food so freely. But then.. today happened.
Walking around Ho Chi Minh City looking for a place to eat pho, we stumbled across a low hanging awning covering 60 or so loud, beer drinking men. We just stopped and watched them for a while until Eli suggested we join them.
He was SO right. Being the only westerners, and one of very few women, the three of us got STARED DOWN as we walked to an empty table in the back. But these weren't stares of anger; veryone in the place wanted us to be there so badly. Within about thirty seconds of being seated, three beer glasses were put in front of us and the table of men next to us raised their glasses to us. This would become a theme throughout our lunch- we were toasted about every 3 minutes from all surrounding tables. So many times in fact, that I often had to interrupt a bite to take a swig of beer. I wonder how many half chewed pieces of mushroom I swallowed trying to keep up... I also think my thumb is sore from all the thumbs-up I had to reciprocate.
We didn't know what to order so I took a stroll around other tables to see if there was anything in common. As I walked by tables, everyone wanted me to have what they were having. Coaxed into one table, I was hand fed a piece of beef and some french fries from a man's chopsticks. And when I liked it, they couldn't have been happier. Afterwards, they watched me order and I felt a lot of pressure to order their beef, but I didn't. It was good though, I promise!
They loved us.
We finally decided: the stupid vegetarians ordering fried rice and tofu, while I got mushroom prawns. Then, as the menu was being taken from me, I noticed an eggplant dish and quickly added that to my list too, becuase, come on, it's eggplant.
The shrimp was so good. The huge black mushrooms were fresh and covered in garlic, and the shrimp blended so well into the whole dish. I've eaten shrimp once or twice a day since entering Vietnam, but these were the best yet.
My eggplant though... ahh, clear winner. Freshly grilled, the egglpant was cut in cubes as opposed to the thin American slices I'm used to. This changed everything- making the dish about the EGGPLANT and not about the sauce. I tried it first plain, but it tasted just like grilled eggplant. Way better with the sweet sauce they gave me on the side. Not that I wouldn't have eaten it plain, obviously I would have loved it. It's just better with sauce.
Eli and I love eggplant. LOVE. Compete in loving it, even. So when Eli first tried the eggplant without the sauce and didn't love it, I accused him of not being a true eggplant lover. A true eggplant lover would love their eggplant, even if it's naked. He was MAD. All day he's been trying to tell me all the reasons he loves eggplant, how he loves eggplant prepared, how often he eats it. Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. I'm just saying that I ate most of the dish and I like it plain too.
Finally- it's important to mention the beer. Saigon beer, named for the city herself. It was spicy! And also.. salty? It made my tongue tingle. But both Eli and Monica agreed, it was salty. I really liked it though.
The whole lunch was a trip. Being cheered for eating, being applauded for just being there. And the whole place didn't even have a name, I don't think. It was just a hole in the wall for the locals. But we found it, and therefore, we won.
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